The Newcastle Upon Tyne Peace Society (1817–50)

The 1816 foundation of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace in London was followed by the creation of a number of Auxiliary societies throughout the country. This paper analyses the history of the Newcastle Auxiliary, covering its establishment in 1817, its disaffiliation from the London Society in 1840, and its subsequent re-affiliation in 1850. After an initial period of quietism after their formation, the paper demonstrates how the radical pacifism of the society developed in the 1830s and 1840s, placing their activities in relation to the specificities of Newcastle’s political history, wider transformations in the British peace movement, and the influence of transatlantic networks of American peace advocacy and anti-slavery activism. The local Richardson family of Quakers personified these transformations, even as anarchists such as Joseph Barker represented a militant outer fringe of the society. Ultimately, however, the society struggled to garner wider support in Newcastle, clashing with local Chartists and with the town’s militarist merchants and businessmen in 1848. The paper therefore demonstrates how the Auxiliary societies need to be thought of active, agential organisations which negotiated the contradictions between their pacifist ideologies and the local and regional milieus within which they were enmeshed.     

Planting Peace: The Greater London Council and the Community Gardens of Central London

‘Peace’ has not lent itself easily to emblematic or mnemonic forms of representation. In Europe’s furnished urban landscapes of the 19th century peace was often personified in female allegorical form. She can be seen in many of the sculpted memorials that commemorate distant battles fought on the edges of Empire. Invariably, however, the figure of ‘Peace’ had a more modest role in the allegory of commemoration than that of ‘Victory’ or ‘Triumph’. As an ideal, peace and pacifism is more often regarded as a process, a long‐term goal that cannot be captured in single static form. To this end, the promotion of peace has most often been realised through intervention, occupation, and fluid, temporal forms such as campaigns, marches, songs, dances and other extended programmes. Peace has also been promoted through slow, evolutionary forms such as designed landscapes, parks and gardens. Drawing on international parallels, this paper examines in detail two community gardens in central London. Each owes its origins to radical local agendas set within the political climate of the Cold War of the 1980s, but both were born out of grand visions for world peace, multilateral disarmament, and global accord. Twenty years after their creation, the author explores their current condition and examines their value as sites of political value and heritage.     

20世纪30年代美国的和平主义运动

20世纪30年代,在人们对第一次世界大战进行反省和日益恶化的国际形势的影响下,美国社会出现了一股与孤立主义既相联系又相区别的和平主义思潮。和平主义者主要由妇女、宗教界人士和在校大学生组成。他们反对战争和军备,主张以和平的手段和方式解决国际纠纷。在法西斯主义猖獗的时代背景下,和平主义者的理念及其实践显得与现实严重脱节,最后只能以失败而告终。     

Feminism,Pacifism and Political Violence in Europe and China in the Era of the World Wars

This article examines international collaboration between Western and Chinese feminists in the interwar decades. Focusing on the 1927–28 ‘mission to Asia’ sponsored by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the article shows that, contrary to what existing historiography would lead us to suspect, neither feminist Orientalism nor colonial nationalism stood as a serious impediment to the formation of a truly international feminist alliance. Instead, European and Chinese women's varying experiences and memories of international conflict, and their varying understandings of the relationship between feminism, pacifism, militarism and political violence, defined the limits of global feminist collaboration in the late 1920s. The WILPF delegates, like many European women in the 1920s, were living in the shadow of the First World War, a conflict they condemned as futile and barbaric; their Chinese ‘sisters’ were living in the midst of a battle to determine the political future of their nation. For both sets of women, the question of women's emancipation was fundamentally entwined with broader national and international struggles. This article incorporates reports, personal letters and diaries of WILPF delegates as well as articles, speeches and letters by Chinese women to offer new insights into one of the earliest efforts to build a truly international women's movement and draw our attention to the centrality of warfare in defining the limits of global feminist collaboration in the twentieth century.     

The Leeds and Yorkshire Geographical Society c. 1902–17

The Leeds and Yorkshire Geographical Society was one of ten 'provincial' geographical societies in England and Scotland established between 1884 and 1910, of which five were in the North of England. It was conceived in about 1902, formally founded in 1908, but had ceased to exist after 1917. Virtually nothing has been discovered hitherto of the Leeds society's history, functions and contexts. This essay examines the evidence for its conception, inauguration, programmes of activity, and the broader local/civic, national and global contexts within which it operated. Its brief history sheds light upon: the need for commercial information to promote trade in an imperial context; the development of geographical thought in Britain and Western Europe; finally, popular curiosity about new geographical information and ideas promoted by geographical exploration and discovery. Comparison is made with the activities of other English ‘provincial’ geographical societies, particularly those in the North of England. The new evidence derives from papers in the West Yorkshire Archive Service Leeds, the archives and publications of the Royal Geographical Society, and the programmes of meetings promoted via the Society itself and the Leeds Institute, housed in Leeds Central Library, together with reports and advertisements in local newspapers.     

Rise and Fall of the Brotherhood of St Andrew in the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin: Charting the American Influence in New Zealand's Religious History

In recent years, scholars have begun to highlight American influences upon New Zealand's religious history. They have demonstrated that even at the height of the British Empire, many non-episcopal churches maintained close ties to their coreligionists in the United States. This article contributes to this field of research by analysing American influences within the Anglican Church of New Zealand, usually portrayed as a thoroughly English institution before the Second World War. It takes as a case study the activities of the American Brotherhood of St Andrew in the Diocese of Dunedin from 1906 to 1915. The article demonstrates that Bishop Samuel Tarratt Nevill invited the Brotherhood because he had great admiration for the Episcopal Church, and that many of his flock accepted the Brotherhood for the same reason. Eventually, the Brotherhood was eclipsed by an English rival, the Church of England Men's Society. But this transition took place not because local Anglicans lost interest in America, but because the Edwardian Era witnessed a surge in imperial loyalty and because the local leader of the CEMS, Canon William Curzon-Siggers, deliberately sought to undermine the influence of the Brotherhood.     

New Delhi’s All-India War Memorial (India Gate): Death,Monumentality and the Lasting Legacy of Empire in India

This paper traces the colonial and postcolonial histories of one of India’s most iconic structures, New Delhi’s All-India War Memorial. Designed and built by Edwin Lutyens immediately after the Great War, the memorial commemorated both Indian soldiers who had died in defence of the empire and the reason for such human sacrifice. As such the memorial reaffirmed and celebrated Britain and India’s unbreakable imperial bond, now strengthened by the fiery crucible of war. After independence in 1947, India took ownership of the memorial by renaming it India Gate to symbolise the country’s transition from what it had been to what it was becoming through India’s passion to be free. In the process, the memorial was re-evaluated and re-imagined in ways that transformed this site of unwelcome colonial memory into one of India’s most important symbols of national renewal. And yet this new interpretation remained as highly contested and problematic as its original colonial meaning. While the memorial became a site of national cohesion for many, it also perpetuated a colonial politics of division along communal (religious) and inter-communal (caste) lines that has eroded a sense of well-being and security for significant sections of the Indian community. Today, India Gate serves as a symbol of both national renewal and national fragmentation.     

War veterans as transnational actors: politics,alliances and networks in the interwar period

Historians have often considered the international veterans’ organizations which came into being after World War I as proof of the pacifist, internationalist orientation of the majority of the Great War ex-combatants. However, veterans active in these organizations were often inspired by specifically national and partisan objectives that belie any simplistic equation between altruistic transnational activism, international cooperation and pacifism. Conceiving of war veterans as transnational actors, this article explores the origins and decline of the veterans’ transnational sphere in the interwar period. It singles out four shades of competing veterans’ internationalism and describes the crucial differences that separated actors such as Henri Barbusse, René Cassin, Henri Pichot and Carlo Delcroix, among others. The article argues that both the veterans’ organizations and their protagonists, while reaching out across national borders, remained embedded in specific constellations of personal trajectories, political partisanship, nation-state interests and inter-state alliances. Their political and social activities also tried to reshape, and were subjected to, existing or emerging spatial configurations such as Great Power alliances and wider internationalist projects. Thus, the article shows that there was no homogeneous transnational sphere in international veteran politics; it was rather the competition between different internationalist practices and projects which shaped veterans’ transnational activities.     

美国史学界关于内战记忆研究述评

书写内战史有助于美国人内战记忆的形成,记忆的调整又推动着内战叙事的演变。通过南部老兵与妇女的努力,“失去的事业”从一种地方记忆上升为民族记忆。从20世纪开始,这种南部记忆主导了美国史学界对内战史的书写。直到越战后期,学界才从社会文化与政治需要的角度剖析“失去的事业”记忆的兴起及其影响,其研究对象主要为群体记忆、英雄记忆,以战场旧址、军事公墓及其纪念碑为中心的有形记忆场。因服务于国家重聚与民族和解之需,存在多种面相的“联邦事业”记忆被美国人长时期遗忘。直到20世纪80年代末,为突出黑人对美国历史的贡献,学界开始重新评析这一强调联邦统一与解放黑人的内战记忆。总之,美国学界对内战记忆的探究总体遵循“失去的事业”与“联邦事业”这两种叙事路径,但其研究并未完全摆脱意识形态的干扰。从21世纪开始,内战记忆史的研究逐步走向了多元社会化的发展方向。     

How proactive? How pacifist? Charting Japan’s evolving defence posture

After 60 years maintaining Self-Defense Forces rather than a normal military, Japan is moving towards exercising collective self-defence, long restricted by interpretations of its 1945 Peace Constitution. The merits of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's ‘proactive pacifism’ are intensely debated by those welcoming greater international contributions from Japan and others suspicious of Japanese ‘remilitarisation’. A nation’s defence posture can theoretically be hijacked by aggressive nationalists, shift to pacifist isolationism, or rely on non-military internationalism or multilateral security cooperation. This article assesses competing explanations about the post-war trajectory of Japan’s defence posture by charting variation in military doctrine and capabilities. The analysis finds that Tokyo has made incremental policy adjustments under domestic and international constraints, and is not aggressively remilitarising.     

The United States government’s deliberations and actions on the status of the South China Sea Islands, 1943–1951: the formation of American policy towards South China Sea disputes

In 1943, the United States began to consider the issue of the world order after the end of World War II; at that time, the status of the islands in the South China Sea remained undetermined. Towards the end of the war, a US policy-planning document on this issue favored either returning the islands to one of the parties claiming sovereignty or placing the islands under international trusteeship once the war ended. Immediately after the end of World War II, the United States withdrew its support for an international trusteeship, and it did not back up any single party’s claim of sovereignty over the islands. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the United States did not clarify its stance on the issue of sovereignty over the South China Sea islands, hoping the eventual outcome would not favor the newly founded People’s Republic of China. Finally, the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, signed under the guidance of the United States, stipulated only that Japan relinquish the islands, but failed to identify who would take them over. The San Francisco Peace Treaty signaled the formation of the official US policy towards disputes over the islands in the South China Sea.     

Translated fronts: songs of socialist cosmopolitanism in Cold War India

Throughout the Cold War, India maintained a policy of non-alignment, first in relation to China and later in relation to the US and USSR. This policy allowed India to receive support from both superpowers during the Cold War, and bolstered Jawaharlal Nehru’s efforts to craft a secular nation that would modernize rapidly along socialist lines. As is inevitably the case, reality proved more complicated than policy. The political context became messy, and myriad translations of socialism in regional contexts pulled at the seams of Nehru’s dream, particularly in the rural areas he sought to modernize through dams, irrigation projects, and infrastructural development. In this paper, I interrogate Cold War socialism at its highly translated margins through the work of Sant Tukdoji Maharaj, a singer-saint from rural Eastern Maharashtra whose influence was local, national, and international. Tukdoji was many things to many people: a devotional singer, a Gandhian, a champion of progressive land reform, an international spokesperson for World Peace, and a supporter of nuclear defence at the Chinese and Pakistani fronts. Tukdoji’s music absorbed influences from beyond rural Maharashtra, but many of his songs obscure the depth of his international political engagements and the complexity of his intersecting ideologies. Through close readings of his songs and writings, this article explores how Tukdoji Maharaj adapted cosmopolitan political ideas to particular contexts, crafting each cultural translation to be optimally intelligible and impactful for a given audience.     

Neutrality and submarine warfare: Germany and Spain during the First World War

The Spanish government maintained official neutrality during the Great War because deviating from neutrality would supposedly endanger the nation’s already limited political and social stability and even threaten the survival of the monarchic regime. In August 1914 there were no direct Spanish interests in the conflict and no benefit to be obtained from any intervention by Spain, which was very weak in military terms and in the international arena. Nevertheless, Spain’s geographic location and its commercial dependence on the Entente made it especially vulnerable to the pressures of France and Great Britain, both of which attempted to take advantage of the services that Spain could offer in the economic war; Spain’s importance increased with the prolongation of the fight. Germany, in contrast, could not hope for more from Spain than its strict neutrality because of its highly important political and economic ties with the Entente and its defencelessness before England and France, from which Germany could not protect it. Because Germany could not wait for Spain’s participation next to her, the primary target of German diplomacy had to be to resist the influence of the Entente and maintain Spanish neutrality while preventing Spain from inclining towards favouring the Allies. To achieve this objective, Berlin fed, with vague promises, the idea that a Spanish collaboration would be rewarded with the annexation of some territories. On this basis, we can begin to study German–Spanish relations during the Great War, which came to be determined by incidents that were caused by the submarine war. The dependence on the Entente also helps to explain the last evolution of the relations between Germany and Spain, which could follow no other policy than that imposed by the final development of the war: taking up a position near the winners and distancing from, and nearly rupturing ties with, Germany. Using both Spanish and German documentation allows us to reach different conclusions that aim to contribute substantially to understanding the relationship between Spain and Germany during the Great War.     

20世纪30年代国民政府对鲁豫皖手工卷烟业的“整理”

20世纪30年代,鲁豫皖手工卷烟业迅速发展,增加了农民收入,繁荣了地方经济,满足了社会需求,促进了农村经济发展。但其对机制卷烟业也造成极大冲击,并严重影响国家税收。出于维护机制卷烟业正常发展和国家税收考虑,国民政府着手对三省手工卷烟业进行"整理",采取了一系列措施,但收效不甚明显;便又采取了取缔手工卷烟的措施。由于手工卷烟户的抗拒,地方政府的不配合,地方税务机关查禁无力,取缔工作难以展开。1937年抗日战争爆发,打断了国民政府对手工卷烟业的"整理"。     

对日和约与朝鲜停战谈判

朝鲜战争的爆发迫使美国最终确定了单独媾和的对日和约新方针,并且期待战局好转而实现对日媾和;美国为了阻止中国出席旧金山会议,在对日和约签订之前采取了拖延谈判的策略;旧金山会议后美国急于停战,而因对日和约在远东陷入困境和被动局面的苏联和中国却决心在停战谈判中坚持强硬的和不妥协的立场,以便在朝鲜战场吸引和消耗美国的力量。这就是在冷战大背景下对日和约与朝鲜停战谈判之间的微妙关系。     

Accelerators and national security the evolution of science policy for high‐energy physics, 1947–1967

Historical analysis of the evolution of science policy for high‐energy physics from 1947–1967 shows how national security concerns played a role in this branch of fundamental science. The Manhattan Engineer District (MED) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers supported particle accelerators after World War II demonstrated the military utility of particle accelerator technology for isotope separation, the transferability of technological skills from accelerator building to other technologies such as radar development, and the usefulness of particle accelerators in making the physical measurements required in the early stages of the design of nuclear weapons.

Although the Atomic Energy Commission initially was disinclined to support further particle accelerator development, it was persuaded to support accelerator projects to advance understanding of the nuclear forces that underlay fission and other nuclear processes, to promote the health of the AEC Laboratories, and to ensure a supply of trained scientific personnel.

The bond between accelerator development and national security tightened during the Korean War an AEC‐Department of Defense (DoD) program studied uses of accelerators for defense and to produce nuclear materials.

Accelerators contributed to another form of national security: national prestige in the international technological competition with the Soviet Union under the Atoms for Peace program and after the President's Scientific Advisory Committee (PSAC) was created in 1958 to respond to Sputnik. Particle accelerators also continued to develop in the AEC weapons laboratories up to the new emphasis placed on them by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO). Links to national security concerns helped programs traditionally thought to be “pure” science efforts win support, and applications from such programs found their way into applied programs.     

印度对日媾和政策探微

战后印度制定了它的对日媾和政策,其中要求中苏参加和会。这与美国的主张背道而驰。而后,印关间进行反复交涉,最终印度从本国利益和本国外交理念出发,拒绝参加旧金山和会。但它却于会后不久即同日本谈判和约之事。总之印度执行的是一种中间路线。